The Toilers of the Sea (28 page)

VI

A STABLE FOR THE HORSE

Gilliatt was sufficiently familiar with reefs to take the Douvres very seriously indeed. His first necessity, as we have said, was to find a safe place for the paunch.

The double ridge of rocks that extended beyond the Douvres like a winding trench linked up at various points with other rocks, within which there were no doubt dead ends and cellars opening off the main defile and attached to it like the branches on the trunk of a tree. The lower parts of the rocks were covered with seaweed, the upper parts with lichens. The uniform level of the seaweed on all the rocks marked the height of high tide and slack tide. Projections on the rock that the water did not reach had the silver and gilt coating that marine granites acquire from the mingling of white and yellow lichens.

At certain points on the rock there was a leprous growth of cone-shaped shells, like the granite's rotting teeth. Elsewhere, in crevices in the rock in which layers of fine sand had accumulated, with ripple marks caused by the wind rather than the waves, were clumps of blue thistles.

In sheltered spots less battered by the waves could be seen the lairs drilled from the rock by sea urchins. These porcupines of the sea, living balls that move around by rolling on their spines, whose protective armor is made up of more than ten thousand pieces, intricately adjusted and welded together, and whose mouth is known, for some unknown reason, as Aristotle's lantern, carve out holes in the granite with their five teeth, which eat away the rock, and then install themselves in the holes. Here the gatherers of seafood find them, cut them in four, and eat them raw, like oysters. Some of them dip their bread in the sea urchins' soft flesh. Hence their name of “sea eggs.”

The summits of the peaks rising from the depths of the ocean, now exposed by the ebbing tide, led to just under the sheer crag of the Homme, where there was a kind of creek, almost completely enclosed by the reef, which seemed to offer a possible mooring. Gilliatt observed it carefully. It was in the shape of a horseshoe open on only one side, which was exposed to the east wind, the least bad of the winds in these parts. There the sea was enclosed and almost without motion. It would be a tolerably safe place for the paunch. In any case Gilliatt had little choice. If he wanted to take advantage of the low tide he had to act quickly.

The weather was still fine and mild. The insolent sea was now in a good humor.

Gilliatt climbed down, put on his shoes, untied his boat, got into it, pushed off, and rowed around the outside of the reef. Reaching the Homme, he examined the entrance to the creek.

The channel was marked by a fixed undulating line amid the movement of the waves, a wrinkle imperceptible to anyone but a seaman.

Gilliatt studied this almost invisible line for a moment, then held off a little in order to have room to turn and enter the channel cleanly, and quickly, with one stroke of the oars, he took his boat into the creek.

Once inside, he took a sounding. It would be an excellent place to anchor. Here the paunch would be protected from almost all the chances of the season.

The most redoubtable reefs have quiet little corners of this kind. The harborages to be found in a reef are like the hospitality of the Bedouin—straightforward and reliable.

Gilliatt brought the paunch as close as he could to the Homme, but far enough out to avoid grazing the rock, and dropped her two anchors. Then he folded his arms and reflected on his position.

The paunch was now safely housed. That was one problem solved. But the next one immediately presented itself. Where was he himself to find a lodging?

There were two possibilities: the paunch itself, with its tiny cabin, which was more or less habitable, and the level top of the Homme, which could easily be climbed.

From either of these lodgings it would be possible to reach the gap between the two Douvres where the Durande was suspended, almost dryshod, by jumping from rock to rock at low water.

But low water did not last long, and for most of the time he would be separated either from his lodging or from the wreck by more than two hundred fathoms. Swimming in the waters of a reef is difficult; if there is any sea going it is impossible.

He would have to give up the idea of finding shelter either in the paunch or on the Homme. There was no other suitable place in the neighboring rocks; the lower points were covered twice a day by the high tide, and the higher points were constantly swept by the foam, promising an unwelcome drenching.

There remained the wreck itself. Would it be possible to lodge there? Gilliatt hoped that it might.

VII

A LODGING FOR THE TRAVELER

Half an hour afterward Gilliatt, returning to the wreck, climbed onto the deck and went down to the between decks and from there to the hold, examining more carefully what he had only briefly surveyed on his first visit.

With the aid of the capstan he had hoisted onto the deck of the Durande the bundle of stores and equipment he had unloaded from the paunch. The capstan had behaved well. There was no lack of hand-spikes to turn it: Gilliatt had plenty of choice among the wreckage.

Among the debris he found a cold chisel that had evidently fallen from the carpenter's tool kit, and added it to his little stock of tools. In addition—for in such poverty of resources everything is of value—he had his own knife in his pocket.

Gilliatt spent the whole day working on the wreck, clearing up, repairing, simplifying.

At the end of the day he took stock of the position. The entire wreck was quivering in the wind. It shook at his every step. The only part of it that was stable and firm was the section of the hull caught between the two Douvres, which contained the engines. There the crosspieces were strongly braced against the granite.

It would not be wise to make his lodging on the Durande. It would have overloaded the wreck; and it was essential to lighten it rather than add to the weight on board. To burden it further was the very opposite of what was required. This ruin required the most tender care. It was like a sick man on his deathbed. It would get quite enough maltreatment from the wind.

It was bad enough that he was going to have to work on board the Durande. The amount of work that the wreck would necessarily have to endure would undoubtedly distress it, perhaps beyond its strength.

Besides, if any accident should happen at night with Gilliatt asleep on board, he would perish along with the ship. There was no possibility of rescue; and all would then be lost. If he was to save the wreck he must find a lodging outside it.

He had to be outside the wreck and yet close to it: that was the problem. His difficulties were increasing. Where, in these circumstances, could he find a lodging?

Gilliatt reflected. There remained only the two Douvres, and they did not seem to offer much prospect of shelter.

From below a kind of protuberance, a bulging mass of rock, could be seen on the summit of the Great Douvre.

Tall rocks with flat tops, like the Great Douvre and the Homme, are peaks that have been decapitated. There are many such rocks in the mountains and in the ocean. Some rocks, particularly in the open sea, have gashes down the side, like trees that have been attacked: they look as if they have been slashed by a felling ax. And indeed they are exposed to the violent comings and goings of the hurricane, that axman of the sea.

There are other, deeper rooted, causes of cataclysms. Hence the many wounds suffered by these old granite rocks. Some of the giants have had their head cut off.

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the head does not fall off but remains, mutilated, on the truncated summit. This singularity is not particularly rare. Two examples of this bizarre geological enigma, in highly unusual circumstances, are the Roque au Diable on Guernsey and the Table in the Annweiler valley.
¹⁶⁵

Something similar had probably happened to the Great Douvre. If the protuberance that could be seen on the top was not a natural irregularity in the rock, it must be a surviving fragment of the shattered summit. Perhaps there might be some cavity in this piece of rock—a hole into which a man could creep for shelter? That was all that Gilliatt asked for.

But how could he reach the summit of the Great Douvre? How could he scale that vertical rock face, as solid and as polished as a water-worn boulder and half covered with a mat of viscous confervae,
¹⁶⁶
which looked as slippery as a surface freshly soaped?

The summit was at least thirty feet from the deck of the Durande.

Gilliatt took the knotted rope out of his toolbox, hooked it to his belt with the grapnel, and set out to scale the Little Douvre. The higher he climbed the harder it became. He had not taken his shoes off, and this increased the difficulty of the climb. Finally, with great effort, he reached the summit and stood up. There was room for his two feet, but little more. It would be difficult to establish his lodging here. A stylite might have found it adequate; but Gilliatt, more exigent than a stylite, wanted something better.

The Little Douvre leaned toward the Great Douvre, so that, seen from a distance, it seemed to be bowing to it; and the distance between the two, which was some twenty feet at the base, was only eight or ten feet at the top.

From the point to which he had climbed Gilliatt had a clearer view of the mass of rock on the summit platform of the Great Douvre. The platform was at least three fathoms above his head, and he was separated from it by a precipice. The overhang of the Little Douvre concealed the steeply scarped rock face beneath him.

Gilliatt took the knotted rope from his belt, quickly measured the distance with his eye, and hurled the grapnel toward the summit of the Great Douvre.

The grapnel grazed the rock and then slipped away. The rope, with the grapnel at the end, fell to the foot of the Little Douvre.

Gilliatt tried again, throwing the rope farther forward and aiming at the mass of rock on the summit, on which he could see various cracks and crevices.

This time the throw was so skillful and so accurate that the grapnel lodged in the rock.

Gilliatt pulled on the rope. The rock broke away, and the rope returned to dangle against the Little Douvre under Gilliatt's feet.

He threw the grapnel for the third time, and this time it did not fall. He tried the rope again. It held. The grapnel was firmly anchored. It had lodged in some crevice on the summit platform that Gilliatt could not see. He would have to trust his life to this unseen means of support.

Gilliatt did not hesitate. Time was pressing. He had to take the quickest way to achieve his aim.

In any case it was almost impossible to get back to the Durande and reconsider his plans. He would probably slip, and almost certainly fall. It was possible to climb up; it was impossible to climb down.

Gilliatt, like all good seamen, was precise and careful in his movements. He never wasted his strength. His effort was always proportionate to the work in hand. Hence the prodigies of strength that he achieved with muscles of merely ordinary power. His biceps were no stronger than anyone else's, but he had a heart that others lacked. To strength, which is a physical quality, he added energy, which is a moral quality.

He was faced with a redoubtable challenge. He had to cross the space between the two Douvres, suspended from this slender rope.

Often, in acts of devotion or of duty, we find question marks— questions that seem to come from the mouth of Death. A voice from the shadows says: “Are you going to do that?”

Gilliatt gave another pull on the rope. The grapnel still held firm. He wrapped his handkerchief around his left hand and grasped the rope with his right hand, which he covered with his left; then, holding one foot out in front of him, he kicked off sharply with the other foot so that the impetus would prevent the rope from twisting and launched himself from the top of the Little Douvre against the face of the Great Douvre.

He banged heavily against the other rock. In spite of the care he had taken, the rope twisted and he hit the rock with his shoulder. He rebounded, and this time it was his fists that struck the rock. His handkerchief had come adrift, and his hands were badly grazed; but at least there were no bones broken.

Gilliatt hung for a moment, dazed by the shock, but was sufficiently in command of himself not to relax his hold on the rope. He swung free, jerking to and fro, and it was some time before he managed to get a grip on the rope with his feet.

Recovering himself, and holding on to the rope with both hands and feet, he looked down. He was not worried about the length of the rope, which he had used to climb greater heights in the past; and it now reached right down to the deck of the Durande. Reassured that he would be able to get down again, he began to climb, and in a few moments had reached the top.

No creature without wings had ever before found a footing there. The summit platform was covered with bird droppings. It was an irregular trapezoid in shape, the broken-off top of the colossal prism of granite called the Great Douvre. The center had been hollowed out by the rain into the form of a basin.

Gilliatt had been right in his guess. At the southern corner of the trapezoid was a pile of rocks, probably fragments left by the fall of the summit. There was sufficient room between these rocks, which looked like gigantic paving-stones, to provide a refuge for any wild creature that might stray onto this summit. They were heaped up in disorder, leaving gaps and crannies, like a pile of builder's rubble. There was nothing in the nature of a cave within the rocks, but rather a series of cavities like the holes in a sponge.

One of these lairs was large enough to admit Gilliatt. It was floored with grass and moss. Gilliatt would fit into it as if in a sheath. It was two feet high at the mouth and narrowed toward the back. There are stone coffins of this shape. Since the other side of the pile of rocks faced southwest, the recess was sheltered from rain but was exposed to the north wind.

Gilliatt decided that it would serve his purpose. Thus two problems were solved; the paunch had a safe haven and he had a lodging. The great advantage of this lodging was that it was within easy reach of the wreck.

The grapnel attached to the knotted rope had fallen between two rocks and was firmly lodged. Gilliatt made sure that it would not come loose by laying a large stone on top of it.

He had now established a means of regular communication with the Durande. The Great Douvre was his home and the Durande was his workplace. He was able to come and go, to climb up and down, without difficulty.

He dropped down quickly on the knotted rope to the deck of the Durande.

The day was going well; he had made a good beginning; he was content. He realized that he was hungry.

He undid his basket of provisions, opened his knife, cut a slice of smoked beef, ate a piece of brown bread, drank from his can of fresh water, and altogether had a good supper.

To do good work and have a good meal are two of the joys of life. A full stomach is like a good conscience.

After he had eaten his meal there was still a little daylight left. He used it to begin the next very urgent task of lightening the wreck.

He had spent part of the day in sorting through the debris on the Durande. He put aside in the stoutest part of the wreck containing the engines anything that might be of use—timber, iron, ropes, canvas— and flung everything else into the sea.

The stores from the paunch that he had hoisted onto the wreck with the capstan, modest though they were, were an encumbrance. Gilliatt noticed a kind of recess in the wall of the Little Douvre, at a height within reach of his hand. Rocks often have such natural cupboards, though they are cupboards without doors. He thought that he could keep things in this one. At the back of the recess he put his two boxes, one containing tools and the other clothing; then he put in the sacks of rye flour and biscuit, and finally—perhaps rather too near the edge, but there was nowhere else to put it—the basket of provisions.

He had been careful to take out of the box of clothing his sheepskin, his oilskins, and his tarpaulin leggings.

In order to prevent the knotted rope from blowing in the wind, he tied its lower end to a rider on the Durande. Since the Durande had been badly stove in the rider was much bent, and held the rope as tightly as a closed fist.

The upper end of the rope also required attention. Tying the lower end was good as far as it went, but at the top of the rock face, where the rope hung over the edge of the summit platform, there was a danger that it would be gradually frayed by the sharp edge of the rock. Gilliatt rummaged through the pile of debris he had collected and picked out a few fragments of sailcloth and some long strands of rope yarn from a length of old cable, which he stuffed into his pockets. A seaman would have known that he was going to use these pieces of cloth and strands of yarn to protect the rope at the point where it passed over the sharp edge of the rock so as to prevent it from chafing: the process known in sailors' language as keckling.

He then put on his leggings and oilskins, pulled the hood down over his seaman's cap, tied the sheepskin around his neck and, thus attired in full panoply, grasped the rope, now firmly secured along the side of the Great Douvre, and set out on the assault of that somber citadel of the sea.

In spite of the abrasions to his hands he quickly reached the summit of the rock. The last pale glimmers of the setting sun were now dying away. It was dark over the sea, but there was still a little light on the top of the Great Douvre. Gilliatt used this last remnant of daylight to keckle the knotted rope. At the point where it passed over the edge of the summit platform he applied a bandage consisting of several thicknesses of sailcloth, each one tightly tied with a strand of yarn. It was rather like the padding that actresses put on their knees in preparation for the deaths and pathetic appeals of the fifth act.

The keckling completed, Gilliatt stood up again. For the last few minutes, while he had been engaged in this work, he had been vaguely conscious of a curious fluttering sound. In the stillness of the evening it sounded like the beating of the wings of some gigantic bat. He looked up. A great black circle was revolving in the deep white sky of twilight above his head.

In old pictures there are sometimes circles of this kind around the heads of saints. But in such cases they are golden against a dark ground; this circle was dark against a light ground. It was like the Great Douvre's halo of darkness.

The circle came closer to Gilliatt and then moved away, contracting and then enlarging. It was made up of a flock of seabirds—gulls, sea mews, frigate birds, cormorants—evidently excited and upset.